Debian flamewar (was: OpenOffice doc...)

[Benjamin Scott]

[I have re-arranged the order of subthreads for editorial purposes.]

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005, at 9:01pm, neil at jenandneil.com wrote:
>> If I have 3 packages, A, B, and C ...
>
>  Similarly, most packages don't rely on more packages.

  Irrelevant.  The issue isn't that I expect most packages to depend on or
conflict with each other; the issue is that a given package *could* do so.  
The only way to know is to test, and that's where all those potential
interactions come in.

> ... this is a null argument here anyway.

  On the contrary, this is an aspect of my major objection to Debian.

  Let me reiterate that this objection is more of a mindset problem then a
technical problem.  I'll get to what it is further on.

> And by the time stable is outdated, testing is good enough ...

  You keep going back to quality, real or perceived.  Repeat after me:  
Quality is not the issue here.  Configuration Management is the issue.

  Indeed, in most environments where CM matters (which is most "real"  
production environments), it's much preferred to have a buggy system you're
familiar with, then a potentially better system with unknown behaviors.

>>> As for deploying hundreds of machines, I have no idea how that's
>>> connected to choice of distro ...                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>>   Exactly my point.  :-)
>
> Well, I'm lost then.  What was your point?

  You stated that you have no idea how deployment issues are connected to
the choice of distro.

  A major thrust of my point, all along, has been that Debian people have no
idea about how deployment issues are connected to their distro.  :-)

>>> I don't really see anyone doing anything better than APT, even on a
>>
>>   Configuration management is completely hopeless if one's configuration
>> varies depending on when you happened to pull your package set from
>> testing/unstable/sarge/sid/pixar/whatever.
>
> Why does it depend on that?  Configuration is very reliable in all
> releases of Debian I've found over the years.

  That's not Configuration Management.  CM is not the act of configuring a
system.  CM means knowing what the configuration of each system is, how it
got that way, who did it, when, and *why*.  Not just the current state, but
all the past states, and the transitions between them.

  Until you grok this, you will *never* understand where I'm coming from.

  You might try this for starters:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22configuration%20management%22

>> Right, but now I just can't type "apt-get install foo" and magically have
>> everything work.
>
> I do this all the time for this or that package on my KnoppMyth install
> and haven't run into a problem yet.

  Well, I haven't used any of that stuff, so here I will have to bow to your
experience.  But know what I know about how computers work, I suspect you're
seeing a carefully filtered subset of the overall potential problems that
occurs when you mix binary packages against differing build and install
environments, most likely due to careful CM on the part of the package
maintainers.

  Either that, or you're just ignoring the problems, which I find a lot of
Debian zealots do.  It appears a lot of Debian zealots don't consider random
breakages that can be fixed by doing some quick "apt-get magic" a problem.  
I don't know if you fall into this category (and if you don't, good for
you), but I find far too many Debian people do.  This is another aspect of
my major problem with Debian.

>>> It really doesn't take too long for decent packages to hit Sarge now
>>> (or for the last year really).
>>
>>  Exactly my point.  testing and unstable are moving targets.
>
> Testing doesn't change significantly that fast.

  You just contradicted yourself.  Either new packages appear quickly, or
the distribution does not change much.  Which is it?

> I'll admit the old installer wasn't pretty ...

  I never found the Debian installer itself all that bad.  Sure, it ain't
the point-and-click automagic experience that the latest Anaconda or YaST
is, but it was clear (if highly technical) and gave me what I needed to go
forward most of the time.  I imagine it would be pretty scary for a newbie,
but I'm not a newbie.

> When you get to the bootup, there's a choice of kernels and you choose the
> bf24 one for a 2.4 kernel rather than a 2.2 kernel.

  Okay, I just tried this on a Debian 3.0r2 CD I had lying around, on my
main home PC, and it was still and once again unable to see all of my hard
drive.  cfdisk coughed and died with an error about a partition extending
past the end of the disk.  I guess this must be one of those "rarely needed
in business environments" things you keep mentioning.  ;-)

> If you're installing to play, you may want to consider Sarge CDs.

  Hmmmm, last time I looked, the Debian web page gave the official stance
that one should not expect ISO images of the unstable stuff, for obvious
reasons.  Of course, last time I looked at that corner of the Debian site
was *years* ago.  Since I see I can now download an ISO of a "weekly" build,
I will do that and give it a shot.  Thanks for pointing that out.

> It is.  It's not coming soon - it's here.  Download a Sarge ISO and see
> for yourself.  If you're looking for a GUI, then you'll still be
> disappointed, but I don't care about eye candy for something I see so
> rarely.

  I don't care about the GUI, but another part of your statement is relevant
here: I'm a professional sysadmin.  There are times where I see the OS
installer every damn day.  Often multiple times a day.  This is -- I'm sure
you're tired of hearing this by now -- another aspect of my major problem
with Debian.

  So what *is* my major problem with Debian?  Well, I'd like to say it's the
lack of understanding of Configuration Management, but really, that's just
another aspect of it.  It's not that.  It's not the package manager.  It's
not the quality of the software.  It's not even the agonizingly long
release cycle.

  It's the fact that Debian isn't a distribution -- it's a religion.  True
Believers know that Debian is Software Perfection Incarnate.  To suggest
otherwise is the worst form of heresy.  Suggestions for improvement fall
upon deaf ears, because to accept suggestions would mean admitting that
God's Chosen Distribution is imperfect -- and that obviously cannot be.

  That I can do without.

  "And yet, it moves."

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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